Published on April 12th, 2012 | by Kim LaCapria
0Chili’s Introduces Touch Screens, Reducing Awkward Human Contact in Restaurants
It’s only in limited markets, but you can now reduce your likelihood of being verbally offered items that end in “a-dilla” when visiting certain Chili’s locations thanks to a program beta-ing touchscreen ordering systems.
It’s kind of surprising no one has thought to implement this innovation across more chain restaurants, considering the uniformity of menus, consumer familiarity with menu items and the likelihood that the blaring refrain of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” prevents your server from hearing your request that they refrain from including that horrible sticky-sweet barbeque ranch with your burger. But Chili’s is innovating here, enabling you to enter your order without that pesky talking-to-people thing the internet is getting so good at removing from our lives.
Oh, did you think you could get around the ridiculous wording places like Chili’s use? Ha! They’re called “Ziosks,” and Minneapolis area Chili’s rep Aaron Keske acknowledges that busy customers are delighted by the innovation- but that they aren’t getting rid of waiters just yet:
“The business clientele that come in for lunch are the ones that love it the most, cause it speeds up their lunch… This will never replace the server. We are in the service industry and all it’s going to do is enhance the guest experience.”
Hey, if I can experience getting my burger rare every single time I ask for it, I’m more likely to break down and enter a Chili’s- would you prefer touch screen ordering to trusting a human to get it all down correctly?